


Multiplication through division

by MadHatter13



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Demisexual Character, Ed is demiromantic/demisexual, F/F, F/M, Pansexual Character, Polyamory, Winry is panromantic/greysexual and polyamorus, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 16:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7471314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Edward Elric, romance was never all that straightforward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Multiplication through division

**Author's Note:**

> Posted ages ago on tumblr, now cleaned up.

It‘s not like he meets a lot of people his age – you don‘t really expect to, when you join the military before turning thirteen.

But in reality, that is pretty much irrelevant. Even if he hadn‘t spent most of his adolescence in grueling physical therapy instead of socializing, the idea of… Romantic stuff doesn’t appeal much. Besides, other things come first, and getting their bodies back is at the top of the list.

_(later, it shares the top spot equally first with ‘and also let’s try not to die’ and after that ‘damn, we better find out what the hell is going on in this country.’_

_-_ _last comes ‘no-one else will die because of us. that’s final.’)_

* * *

  
So it’s not like the subject comes up a lot.

‘Only stopping for a day, Fullmetal?’

‘We’ve got another lead in the South, no time to waste.’

The Colonel sighs theatrically as he pushes the relevant forms across his desk. ‘I don’t suppose you boys could be persuaded to do normal teenage stuff? Flirt with a girl or, steal a pie off a windowsill, I don’t know. This constant work is unnerving.’

‘Or a boy,’ says Havoc cheerfully from over at his desk.

Mustang nods. ‘If you’d rather.’

Ed, who has been steadily growing redder with every word, explodes in a cloud of indignation, starting on the theme that if he’s gonna take personal advice it won’t be from the Colonel, working up to the fact that said Colonel could stand to flirt with fewer women himself, detouring to the observation that his work ethic is a crime against science, and ending with the zinger, ‘And also your haircut is stupid!’

Al admonishes him for it later, when Ed is still fuming over a pile of sandwiches at their hotel.

‘Who’s he to tell me what to do?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, your superior officer, maybe?’

‘Don’t be sarcastic, brother of mine! That's not within his legal jurisdiction! Besides, we’ve got better things to do than,’ he snorted, ‘chase girls, or whatever.’

There is a chink of metal that would seem quite commonplace to those who hadn’t spent a long time in the company of a walking suit of armor, but one that told Ed that he had probably said the wrong thing. Of course, this was more or less a quarter-hourly occurrence, but for it to bother his brother was less common.

‘Did it ever occurred to you that maybe I’d like to?’  
His stomach clenches in a completely and horribly familiar way, and he puts the third sandwich down. ‘I… no. I’m sorry.’

Al snorts, which is quite a funny sound when followed by the metallic echo of that’s been a feature of his speech for several years now. ‘It’s okay, brother. But can you really say that you wouldn’t like to, if things were different, maybe meet someone nice? Or someone to argue with, at least.’

And for the moment, Ed really does think – what it might be like, liking someone the way kids their age might do back in Resembool. From what little he’s seen, people find someone they get along with, or at least doesn’t get on their nerves too much, and then get married in their late twenties, maybe, and perhaps they'll have kids and that’s it. In East City it’s a different story – people seem to switch between partners at the drop of a hat, and their relationships seem time-consuming, taxing and unnecessarily messy.

It just… doesn’t appeal. 

‘No, I… Not really?’

Al settles down at the honest bewilderment in his voice. ‘Well, alright. Just don’t judge other people if they would, okay?’

And the matter ends there, for now.

* * *

  
‘Was that your girlfriend?’

It’s not like he can be blamed for the shock, he thinks begrudgingly when Sergeant Brosch wheels him to his hospital room. No-one should be mentally assaulted with a question like that, especially about their childhood friend. And it’s not like he thinks of Winry in that way.

The thing is… When he thinks of her in relatively calm moments, he thinks of kindness. This is particularly funny, he admits as he lies unable to sleep on the too-soft hospital bed that night, considering the fact that she often hurls heavy metal objects in his direction. But, romance is roses and candlelight and your heart doing its best to break three of your ribs at once, topped off with messy breakups. And Winry is the sound of power drills, the smell of engine oil, someone who gave him the means to carry on, someone who tells him off when he’s being more stupid than usual. A kind of home.

They are annoying thoughts, and secretly they make him quite anxious, so he puts them away, and thinks that is the end of it.

* * *

 

She and Paninya hold hands so casually on the way from the hardware store in Rush Valley, that a part of his brain files it away as ‘something that girls do.’ Until another one hits him over the head with a metaphorical hammer and says, ‘alright, but do they kiss each other on the cheek when they’re not even saying goodbye?’

Because that just happened, and it caused Al to make a sort of strangled noise that, theoretically, required a larynx, and Paninya looks defiant, and Winry rolls her eyes in response to all three of them.

Still, he asks her later when she’s fixing his arm, in the most pathetic attempt at tact ever, ‘So…’

He doesn’t get further than that, because she huffs impatiently and says, ‘Honestly, Edward, if you’re about to say something tactless just now, remember I have a wrench attached to your nervous system.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Oh, you’re not _now_.’

‘No, I really wasn’t! I just didn’t know you, uh, liked… girls?’ Or boys for that matter. I mean, his automatic, unthinking assumptions were along those lines, like they had been about Second Lieutenant Breda until the man had mentioned a boyfriend back home - or rather Second Lieutenant Havoc had... He's going on a tangent. _Anyway,_ he can't actually recall Winry ever going out with anyone in Resembool - at least to his knowledge, which has been somewhat spotty for the last four years.

‘Well, I didn’t know either.’ She fitted another screw into his elbow joint, and bent his arm carefully to make sure it was properly fitted. ‘I guess I just like people, generally.’

‘So, uh, you’re going out?’

‘Yup, pretty much. She has a huge crush on the girl who runs the bakery down the street, and is working on asking her out. We’re casual for now.’

His eyebrows meet in a frown. ‘She’s cheating on you?’ 

This earns him a screwdriver on the back of the head. ‘You idiot!’

‘Ow! What? How am I supposed to know if you don’t explain this stuff to me? If someone cheats on you I want to know so I can kick their ass! You’re my friend, alright?’

Her voice softens. ‘Well, yes.’

He lies back down, rubbing his bruised head. ‘Just as long as that’s clear.’

There is a beat. Then she said, ‘Of course, it would probably end up with you standing by to call them an ambulance while _I_ kicked their asses.’

‘Fine.’

Another beat. 

‘So..?’

She sighs. ‘ _No_ , she is not cheating. We just talked about it and decided we both didn’t mind if we went out with multiple people.’

He huffs, blowing the hair out of his face. ‘How does that even work? Putting up with one person sounds like enough of a hassle!’

‘Ed, the point of being in a relationship is that it isn’t supposed to feel like a hassle. If it does, you should probably not be with that person.’ She adds another screw, and her tone became slightly embarrassed. ‘Besides, she doesn’t mind that I don’t think… you know, sex, is very interesting.’

He nearly cracks her skull on his own with how fast he gets up. ‘You think so too?!’

  
But they’re interrupted by Ling waltzing past and asking if there’s anything left to eat, and the conversation stops there.

* * *

 

So.

Hm.

He supposes, as he walks back to the hotel from the Lieutenant’s apartment, that he is meant to feel elated. The usual response (as far as he is aware) for a character who previously spurns the idea of romance realizing that they have fallen in love seems to be a "dancing in the streets" kind of reaction.

In reality, he just feels mildly queasy. And he can’t even chalk it up to ‘butterflies in the stomach’, just the fact that the Lieutenant makes coffee strong enough to dissolve spoons.

What is he even supposed to do with that kind of realization? So, he loves Winry. So what? As far as he’s concerned, he’s always loved her (although he'd have a hard time admitting this out loud). Just as he has always loved Al, and Sensei, and Granny, and his mother. But it is as if the world now expects him to start writing poetry about it or, god forbid, dramatically confess said love.

Anyway, would she even feel the same? He knows she loves him the same way she loves the rest of their family, but she doesn’t seem to think love is something to be hoarded with a set portion given over to just one person. For her it is something that she shares, that multiplies the more people are a part of it.

And he’s just one guy with anger issues and a lower than average number of limbs. 

It doesn’t have to change anything, he thinks to himself. 

_(later, he’ll be surprised to realize that he is actually right._

_of course, it isn’t in the way he expects.)_

* * *

 

Two years is a long time to think.

Of course, Edward being Edward, he leaves the actual deciding to the very last possible second.

_‘I give you half of my life – and you give me half of yours!’_

The silence is deafening, and so is the absolutely blank look on her face.

Then she starts to argue percentages, and he knows they are just like they were before.

Because they don’t have to follow the script, if there ever was one in the first place. So what if his feelings didn’t fit into some box designed by other people? So what if she loves other people just as much as him? It wasn’t about what everyone else thought.

The only thing that mattered, in that respect, was them, and now.

They say goodbye, but know that it is only until next time. He leaves for the neighboring countries in the west, and she splits her time between Resembool and Rush Valley and later the rebuilt Ishval, and they love things and knowledge and places and people just the ways they know how.

And so, even countries apart and up to their ears in work, be it alchemical or mechanical, they will always find a kind of home in each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Touches only lightly on my firmly-held belief that Winry packs up for Ishval at some point after the series to offer her service as a mechanic for anyone there who needs it. There aren't *nearly* enough fics on that subject...


End file.
